Kona entered the workforce early, going with Raina daily to work. He was often known to just sit at the edge of their office and stare down the hallway watching the people go by. At home he always played the role of guard dog even though it took only a push with your foot to move him out of your way. One of Kona's favorite domestic hobbies was eating shoes, especially expensive, fine leather shoes. For some reason he always seemed to know which ones were Raina's favorites and go after them. Occasionally he would switch over to furniture to mix things up, power cords were his favorite, he liked to walk on the wild side I guess.
When we moved to Big Rock Ranch, he was living in a dog's dream. He had over an acre of trees, grass and plants to explore along with squirrels, birds and cats to chase. One time he found a skunk, that ended poorly for all of us. When Trenton was born, Kona knew he was no longer the "child" and most of the attention he had received was shifted to the baby. In response Kona made sure to eat every binky he could the second it fell on the ground, he had lighting quick speed. Kona loved to chew bones, he was picky and liked fresh ones so our yard was often full of half eaten day old chews. By the time Simon came Kona was starting to warm up to children, but he never liked it when they could crawl and be at his same height. The boys always thought he was really funny to watch.
In his older years he slowed down, moved a little less, panted a little more and became a bit more needy. It was tough at times to care for him but that is what you do when you love something. There were quite a few nights when Kona decided he wanted to wake us up at 3:30am just because he felt like it. He recovered from a difficult surgery and continued to bring us a few more years of joy. Recently his age caught up with him and he started to really show his age. At times is it was painful to watch him try and move around the house.
As a pet owner you face hard decisions about the welfare of your animal and balancing that with your own selfish desires not to loose a close friend and part of your family. Thursday we made that very hard choice, not being able to watch our Kona suffer. I can only assume that the immense sadness and grief we feel with this loss is because the of the years of joy and happiness he brought our home. We have so many good memories of a wonderful dog. We brought him back to our home and laid him to rest in a peaceful corner of the land he loved, where he will always be near us. We will miss him.
